I generally only upload games to my Retrogame site
http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/jgam ... tures.html
that I have confirmed the distribution status with the owner of the copyright. However, one of the people it has been difficult to find extensive biographical information about in order to try to reach out to is Greg Hassett. Many commentator's note that Hassett started programming at the age of 12 and that he was very prolific. But it is unclear what happened to him after his contribution to the early age of home computing.
I've noticed that some people might already have used one of my early games distributions to examine one of his games, such as:
https://www.retrogamestrove.com/game-15-king-tuts-tomb/
And I've also been contacted by a number of people recently wanting to play this game from my faculty site, so I have decided to upload his games so these folks can access them, at least for a month or so. If anyone out there knows anything about the copyright status of these games or the whereabouts of Greg Hassett, a response here would be much appreciated.
I have already ported the following games by him:
The House of Seven Gables
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Sorcerer's Castle Adventure
King Tut's Tomb
Voyage to Atlantis
Enchanted Island
I am now considering converting some of his other games, so that people can have online access to the works of this important contributor:
Mystery Mansion
World’s Edge
Curse of the Sasquatch
Devil's Palace
I have listed them in order of my priority for porting. When I have finished I'll also make them available until I take them back down this April. If folks have any thoughts on which of these are the most significant please let me know.
I've also stumbled across a neat publication: Captain 80 BASIC Adventures. It has a huge list of classic text adventure games, many I have already converted to Micro Color BASIC (See the ones with *s).
Chapter 1 Atlantean Odyssey Teri Li 37
Chapter 2 Dog Star Lance Micklus 87 *
Chapter 3 Thunder Road Don & Freda Boner 97
Chapter 4 Deadly Dungeon Don & Freda Boner 107
Chapter 5 Revenge of Balrog Don & Freda Boner 117
Chapter 6 The Fortress at Times-End Don & Freda Boner 125
Chapter 7 Temple of the Sun Jack Powers 134
Chapter 8 Lost Ship Charles Forsythe 148
Chapter 9 Spider Mountain Teri Li 157
Chapter 10 Lost Dutchman's Gold Teri Li 167 *
Chapter 11 Journey to the Center of the Earth Greg Hassett 177 *
Chapter 12 King Tut's Tomb Greg Hassett 187 *
Chapter 13 Voyage to Atlantis Greg Hassett 197 *
Chapter 14 House of Seven Gables Greg Hassett 206 *
Chapter 15 Sorcerer's Castle Greg Hassett 216 *
Chapter 16 CIA Adventure Hugh Lampert 225 *
Chapter 17 Arctic Adventure Harry McCracken 234
Chapter 18 Adventureland Scott Adams 241 *
I am considering converting some of these that I haven't done yet over the next few months. But first I must investigate in the database and around the Net which one's are already easily available. If I find any that are not, I'll come back to this list and mark them with a + sign to indicate that they are on my radar screen for porting. But if anyone has any suggestions for ones that I should prioritize please post a comment.
One final "Text Adventure" project I am thinking of undertaking is converting my re-code of
Planet of Death by Artic Soft. I have read many reviews of this game, and they all praise it for its innovative features (for the time). But there are also a number of specific complaints that reviewers make about its puzzles that they all agree spoil the game, especially for modern players. It might be nice, since I have converted it to BASIC, to make my recode a new version of the game that addresses these complaints. That way it might serve a useful function of providing an opportunity for modern players to give it a try and not be overly frustrated. Any comments on this project would be much appreciated.